


To Ashes

by SilverServerError



Series: Monster on the Mountain [2]
Category: CLAMP - Works, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Dragon Kurogane, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7093447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverServerError/pseuds/SilverServerError
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurogane need only shift his weight and Fai would be little more than a grease stain across the stone. </p><p>They watch each other, deadly serious. </p><p>“Truce?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> There wasn't supposed to be a part two, but there is so much imagery that came to me for this story and I couldn't leave left unwritten.

Fai’s chest heaves where the claws had him pinned to the rocks. Kurogane casts long shadows in the sunrise light. The dragon can touch him now. He is burning out. The fight had taken much longer than he’d bargained for.

 

Still, he’d managed to hook the chain around two of the spikes that flared up from the back of the dragon’s skull. It had been a reckless move but Fai had been getting desperate. Now he has just enough leverage to pull that skull down and close to him, relatively defenseless red-slitted eye watching him intensely and dangerously close to the hand Fai holds up warningly. He has focused his power into this hand, making it glow a bright blue-white while the rest of him fades to yellow.

 

By the same token, Kurogane need only shift his weight and Fai would be little more than a grease stain across the stone.

 

They watch each other, deadly serious.

 

“Truce?”

 

Fai scrutinizes him but eventually nods. Dragons were notoriously honest. He moves his hand to melt through the chain near his cuff. As soon as the tension breaks, Kurogane moves his head to rest on the stones next to him, skull the size of Fai’s entire torso, panting smoke out of the giant snout. They are both exhausted. Extraordinary power or not, it has been a long night. 

 

Beneath his claws, Fai slowly fades; from yellow to red to orange glowing ember. Finally even that dies away and all that is left is black, dead ash. Kurogane’s eyes widen in concern but then the shape shudders. The ash falls away as dust and beneath is pale, pink skin. Paler than when the fight had begun. On either side of Kurogane’s claws, the shadows of his wings are sketched out in scorch marks and carbon on the stone. He wipes away the last of the ash from his face, leaving faint trails of charcoal on his cheeks. There are also flecks of gold solidified onto his skin, almost like metallic freckles. He lets his head fall to the side with a heavy pant.

 

“My name is Fai.” He volunteers.

 

“Kurogane.” The dragon answers.

 

“I know.” Fai’s breathing slowly comes back under control. “You fight pretty well. Most of the dragons I’ve met are out of practice.”

 

But of course they were, Kurogane thinks. You’re not supposed to exist anymore.

 

“I was beating _you_.” The dragon huffs. Fai frowns like that is a contested claim. Kurogane sighs (and that is such a small word to describe all the biological machinery involved or the shear heft of moving a body that big), and blinks, eye focusing ahead, to watch the distant waves below the cliff and the jungle that eases back towards the beach. “Do you fight a lot of dragons?”

 

“Yes”

 

“Do you kill them?”

 

“Sometimes.”

 

Kurogane blinks back towards him. “Are you going to try to kill me?”

 

Fai’s expression is sober, but not unkind. “I’d prefer not to.”

 

Kurogane hesitates, but what harm could it do? “Nor I you.”

 

Fai smiles at him and wraps a hand lightly around the claw that has him pinned at the shoulder. It’s an oddly sweet gesture.

           

“But you came here with a mission, did you not?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“So what is the alternative to my death?”

 

“The alternative is that you let me up,” Here Fai brings his hands to his chest and pushes lightly up at the join between Kurogane’s talons. His hands are so small. The sensation almost tickles. “We exchange words, and I convince you to spare the village.”

 

To be honest, Kurogane couldn’t give a shit about the village right now. This new creature though…

 

He pulls his claws away and sits up. Fai stands and dusts himself off, still well below his eye line, but this is the closest they’ve yet felt to equals excepting that near-death situation a moment ago.

 

“This is an acceptable proposal.”

 

“One more thing.” Fai winces. Kurogane just tilts is head, waiting. “Could we perhaps have this negotiation in your lair?”

 

Kurogane frowns. It’s his lair. It’s not a place for visitors. “Why?”

 

Fai gestures at the slowly rising sun. “My clothes got uh… ruined. And I’m going to get sunburned if we’re out here much longer.”

 

Kurogane squints at him, unsure if this is a joke. “You jest.” He says flatly.

 

“I do not!” Fai pouts. “This is brand new skin! It’s very delicate, ok?” He holds out an arm as if to prove the point.”

 

“Tch.” Kurogane spits out a spark with the noise to show his annoyance. “Fine.” He turns, keeping an eye on Fai as he enters the mouth of the cave first.

 

* * *

 

 

Fai has seen many a lair, but _this-_

 

Magma flows along pathways, dips over small cliffs like glowing waterfalls trapped in time. Finely carved obsidian holds up the cavernous ceiling in the shape of dark and beautiful caryatids. The golden hoard… it’s almost alive in the shifting light. There are still many stairways to descend. He has not even begun to see the full effect of the architecture.

 

This is something special.

 

Fai glances over his shoulder. Kurogane is watching him. His figure is impressive in any right, but especially here. The light catches everywhere on his skin and yet his color is such a deep black that he moves like a shadow, except where the metallic spatters across his skin show evidence from their fight. It’s like stars against the night sky. Fai looks back up to his face to meet a stern gaze.

 

Kurogane is something special.

 

He smiles to himself as he continues deeper into the mountain. If the dragon continues to be this accommodating, he might even get to keep that implied promise about not killing him.

 

Dragons were notoriously honest. Phoenixes were not.

 


End file.
